Outtakes On Bob Dylan: Selected Writings 1967-2021

Michael Gray represents the lucid middle ground of Dylan criticism. A freelance writer since the days of “Oz” magazine, this anthology gathers his journalism from the last 50 years, and forms a modest adjunct to several far heftier publications. It offers his engaging reaction to great albums, bootlegs, sometimes dire concerts, and the loss of friend and fellow Dylan fan, England cricketer Bob Willis. One essay makes a detour into scrupulous folk-music research, while another takes a pained and memorable trip through blues history in the shadowy pre-Katrina South. Gray concludes matters with a long appreciation of Dylan’s latest (and at 80, probably final) collection of original songs, “Rough & Ready Ways”. The result is a sane and decent book by a sane and decent writer – a singular rarity in this line of work, as any admirer of Dylan can attest.Some quibbles of taste are unavoidable. Gray actively dislikes two new acoustic “Self Portrait” tracks I happen to love, dismisses “Masked & Anonymous” as a vanity project, and joins other commentators in believing “Murder Most Foul” a masterpiece: to each their own. On the plus side, he makes the unique and perfect observation that Dylan’s live performances in 1978 were “iridescent,” deplores the latter-day commercial shuck and jive, and pinpoints a most disturbing element in many more recent compositions – namely, their spiteful indulgence in revenge fantasy. Gray doesn’t touch on it, but the “Rolling Stone” interview which accompanied “Tempest” was suffused with this bile. It revealed a deeply bitter and possibly deranged personality, a billionaire still smarting from long-ago hecklers and pesky critics who Just Don’t Get It, and gave the edgy impression of a grand life that was ending up as ashes – though not in the Bob Willis sense.Subsequent events haven’t played out any better. We’ve witnessed pointless, plagiaristic lyrics, the “Sunday night homework” of Dylan’s Nobel speech, painful gigs with his ruined voice, defiantly clunky art-work, a fire sale of song publishing – the list goes on. This warm and nimble book is a reminder of how greatly Dylan used to matter, but also of how small his lasting impact is on anyone today beyond the Bobcat faithful. Modern times have caught up with us all. True to form they entail yet another Trump revival, but in this era not even the most cheery critic would make similar claims for Dylan’s once-galvanic talent. Michael Gray applauds what remains of it in “Rough & Ready Ways,” and his work is very far from being an epitaph. None the less, as the late Mr. Willis might have put it, any sane spectator ought to quit the wicket, while Dylan himself should surely draw stumps and retire.